Probes on the exterior of the SPEC Inc.'s Learjet - used for cloud measurements - were on display during a media tour Thursday at Ellington Field.

Probes on the exterior of the SPEC Inc.'s Learjet - used for cloud measurements - were on display during a media tour Thursday at Ellington Field.

Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff

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Scientists show off the interior of NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory during the media tour highlighting NASA's SEAC4RS science flights.

Scientists show off the interior of NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory during the media tour highlighting NASA's SEAC4RS science flights.

Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff

NASA launches pollution study

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From a base of operations in Houston, NASA has launched its most ambitious airborne campaign to study how pollution affects Earth's climate and weather.

Three aircraft - a large DC-8, a high-altitude ER-2 and a Learjet - will fly nearly four dozen missions during the next two months over the southern and western United States to collect data about pollution from metropolitan areas, smoke from large fires and emissions from other sources.

The goal is to better understand where these pollutants go as they rise into the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere, how they interact with clouds and otherwise affect weather patterns.

"The measurements we are making, and the improvements we make to our models, will help give us a better predictive capability for our air quality, climate and weather," said Hal Maring, the NASA scientist leading the $27 million program.

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Aircraft bedecked with instruments and carrying three dozen scientists have already begun flights from Ellington Field, and will do so throughout August and September. Researchers will then spend the next five months analyzing the data.

Scientists have trouble tracking pollutants after they leave the Earth's surface because satellite instruments often do a poor job of identifying them.

What scientists do know is that fire smoke can change the properties of clouds, and can reduce the amount of sunshine reaching the Earth's surface. The addition of man-made pollutants can also alter the chemical balance of the atmosphere.

The program, named Studies of Emissions, Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys, represents NASA's largest effort to date to study these processes, and has been the subject of more than five years of preparation.

On Thursday, NASA publicly discussed the program and showcased the three aircraft. The largest, a modified DC-8, can carry 30,000 pounds of scientific instruments as high as 42,000 feet. The large-winged ER-2 craft, based upon the U-2 spy plane, can fly up to 70,000 feet, above 99 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. But the research craft is not used for spying.

"We're all about science," said Dean Neeley, who pilots the craft, which carries a single person on its flights high above Earth.

The third craft is a Learjet that will fly through clouds to better study their structure.

Eye on Idaho fires

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Among the priorities of the mission is to better understand how smoke from large fires moves through and affects the atmosphere, and the scientists have already sampled the large blazes burning this month in Idaho.

Bob Yokelson, an atmospheric chemist with the University of Montana, noted that forest fires cause an average of $2 billion in U.S. property damage annually, and the government spends about $3 billion each year fighting fires. Fires cause about one-third of the pollution in the United States, yet scientists still know relatively little about its effects once it reaches the upper atmosphere.

"We really need to understand what is in the smoke, and where it goes," Yokelson said.